Car Bombs Kill 20 at Syrian Kurdish New Year Celebration

Two car bombs killed at least 20 people celebrating Nowruz, the Iranian new year, in the mainly Kurdish city of Hassaka in northeastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday.

The Observatory, which tracks the four-year-old Syrian civil war, said the attack also wounded 80 people and was carried out by Islamic State, a hard-line jihadist group which has fought Kurds in Syria and Iraq.

Nowruz is an important festival in Kurdish culture in which people gather to play games, dance and eat. In Syria, Nowruz is also celebrated as an expression of identity for the stateless Kurdish minority. […]